Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion on Tuesday, April 4, renewed calls for pharmaceutical companies to apply for the Certificate of Product Registration (CPR) for Covid-19 bivalent vaccines as experts warned against the impact of long Covid in the workplace.

With the country no longer under a state of emergency, which expired on Dec. 31, the former economic adviser to the president explained this meant the more potent and protective bivalent vaccines may only be obtained and made available to the public through the CPR.

“The way forward for the country to obtain needed bivalent vaccines for booster shots is for pharmaceutical firms to apply for CPR. They cannot permanently rely on the government for indemnification from adverse reactions,” Concepcion, who also leads the Jobs group of the Private Sector Advisory Council, said.

“We must remember that the country is no longer under a state of public health emergency, so we cannot import Covid-19 vaccines through Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) anymore,” he added.

Under the EUA, issued for unregistered drugs and vaccines in a public health emergency, the Philippines signed indemnification agreements with drugmakers to essentially hold then harmless in case of unexpected adverse reactions to the vaccines.

In a statement from Go Negosyo, Concepcion expressed hopes that the Covid-19 vaccine will eventually be made commercially available just like the vaccines for pneumonia, the flu, and shingles.

His increasing concern for the availability of the vaccines to the public came on the heels of infectious disease specialist Dr. Rontgene Solante’s warning of the dangers of long Covid, which presents lingering symptoms long after an individual has been infected with Covid-19.

“You can just imagine an individual who is in the frontline of your workplace and will have brain fog and memory loss. That’s something that will be a disadvantage to the company,” he said.

Solante was the resource speaker during Monday’s Covid-19 Town Hall, “Minimizing Business Disruptions Through Covid-19 Booster Vaccination,” which was organized by Go Negosyo.

Booster doses, however, can help prevent other complications of the virus, especially long Covid, which has affected a significant percentage of people who have had Covid-19.

Solante stressed the importance of workers receiving booster doses.

“It’s very difficult to build a population wall of immunity in the community,” he said. “At least in your workplace, if all of you are vaccinated, if all people are boostered, then you have a lower risk of higher absenteeism and loss of productivity.”

“Imagine in a company where you have an individual who developed mild infection but long Covid was there. The co-morbidities are amplified, uncontrolled hypertension, uncontrolled diabetes. That’s something that really will be a burden of the infection in terms of productivity,” he added.